Albert Camus Quotes

Reason is the shepherd trying to corral life's vast flock of wild irrationalities.

We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is to learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.

To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy.

The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only.

When a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.

I guess I'm quite practical. Or at least like to think I am.

We've lost common sense.

Man is a rational animal – so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favour of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.

Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

It is not easy to fall into any absurdity, unless it be by the length of an account; wherein he may perhaps forget what went before. For all men by nature reason alike, and well, when they have good principles.

You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp itsseat, and rule in its stead.

To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.

There is only one force stronger than selfishness, and that is stupidity.

It seems like topsy-turvyland to make reason serve the irrational. Yet that is just what it has always done, and ought always to do.

We are reassured almost as foolishly as we are alarmed; human nature is so constituted.

Man is an emotional animal, occasionally rational; and through his feelings he can be deceived to his heart's content.

I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.

Science is not a substitute for common sense, but an extension of it.

Rationality went down the drain donkey's years ago and hasn't been seen since.

Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity.

We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-interest. Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident. The falling of a teacup puts us out of temper for the day; and a quarrel that commenced about the pattern of a gown may end only with our lives.

Many that are not mad have, sure, more lack of reason.

I no longer idolize reason. I have come to accept that ninety percent of what we do is irrational and that we spend what little rational thought we have in justifying our irrationality.

Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.

Man is many things, but he is not rational.